Award details

A new approach to measuring and indexing the biological quality of soils

Reference	D13194
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr John Witty
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Dr Lance Mytton, Professor David Scholefield
Institution	Inst of Grassland and Environmental Res
Department	Cell Biology Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	229,516
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	12/02/2001
End date	12/02/2004
Duration	36 months

Abstract

Maintaining soil quality is a major objective of UK and EC environmental policy and soil remediation is also a BBSRC research priority. These objectives cannot be realised without practical methods for both measuring and indexing quality. Presently neither are available, largely because of the complexity of processes and interactions underlying soil function. We hypothesise that the biological health of soil can be defined by macroscopic properties that integrate these underlying processes; specifically from measurements of O2 use and CO2 production, soil permeability and redox potential. We propose a new scheme relating these parameters to soil quality. We have already developed field methods for measuring all the above. Financial support would be used to: 1) bring these technologies into a single method; 2) define the quantitative relationship between soil quality and position within the new scheme; and 3) develop algorithms that produce a reliable and easily understood set of numeric values that index soil quality.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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